Unpredictable Workers, Secondary Boycotts, Red Note Suppression

I grew up as a black kid in a white family amongst the white working class(es) of Boston and Philadelphia. Throughout the journey that was my early adulthood, I was a blue collar worker instinctively drawn to organized labor as a practical mode of self-defense. I probably see things much differently than many of you reading this piece. My family of origin was both white and willing to die (I’m not exaggerating) to protect me. Something like the experience Malcolm X had when realizing the universality of Islam (Moslems with blue eyes!) was seared into me by the time I was a young kid in the 1960s. Whatever the current race-political moment happens to be in the United States, I slide by it like Mark Twain. White liberals say I’m leaning into “privilege” because my parents forced me to learn to read, write, and critique well. I’ll let you be the judge.

When I worked as a Teamster at the Philadelphia International Airport in the 1980s, I viewed Joe Biden as a dog-whistle, racist enemy of the working class; and Arlen Specter—then a republican—as a friend of organized labor. My views were not the product of ideology, they were the product of experience. Specter was not “good” on all labor issues, but he was a good-faith listener (unlike many other allegedly labor friendly politicians in metro Philadelphia). When U.S. Air Teamsters in Philadelphia wanted to talk, only Specter would listen. When racist antibusing forces wanted to talk, Biden listened.

When Oren Cass argues—as a republican—for a worker-centered new deal, I don’t laugh at him. My experiences in Philadelphia and elsewhere allow me to cut through silly and materially-interested bifurcations that others seek to impose on me. I listen to him. That’s what makes Teamsters—even former Teamsters like me—unpredictable. Although they may not precisely articulate what socialists sometimes call “class consciousness,” that is exactly what “Teamster-thinking” represents. So, Oren, let’s talk about heat in the workplace. Republicans will undoubtedly slow-walk (or even kill with the Congressional Review Act, if OSHA dares to resort to publication) the heat protection rule that OSHA just “floated” for notice and comment. What is your solution, Oren, to workers being exposed to excessive heat? I really want to know. My impression of the republican party is that its answer to these questions is always something like – “the free market will decide such matters.” But how? Historically, the republican role is simply to point out “problems” with the rule, not to propose a solution. Somehow huge pools of venture capital will solve stuff. But how? And please be aware you are speaking to the grandson of a coal miner who died of black lung in the unregulated coal fields of the 1960s. It is hard to escape the conclusion that certain such world views yearn not for a world of better rules, but rather for a world of no rules.

I confess that my answers to such questions have always assumed—with Samuel Gompers—that, in the end, Government cannot be relied upon because of subtle and corrupt internal conflicts of interest (however smart it thinks it is). But it is nevertheless a scary thing to embrace the mystical and ruleless “invisible hand” to which economic conservatives (who even deign to make arguments) instinctively cling. People who have been hungry (literally, not figuratively) understand that the end of the road of free market fundamentalism—the chief “desideratum”—is no government in relief of poverty. Habitually, I have gone along with the idea that something (including imperfect Government regulation) is better than nothing – on real (as opposed to phony) lesser of evils grounds. A world without rules is a useful abstraction only for those with power.

Still, I have also always seen labor law as a coherent, “private” way of allowing forces in opposition to the odd species of ruleless, invisible-hand nihilism to coalesce and strike (withholding labor and agitating within certain non-violent boundaries). But it has always been amazing to me how focused American labor law has been on suppressing “secondary boycotting”—even where the boycotting involves non-violent persuasion and communication. American labor law is most concerned—it is the highest priority “unfair labor practice charge” at the National Labor Relations Board, for example—with the “problem” of preventing employees engaging in strikes, against their own employers, from persuading employees of a different employer from striking their employers in solidarity with the original “strike.” (If you think that sentence was bad you should see the statutory language from which I was drawing). Mere attempts at such solidarity persuasion are forbidden. That has always seemed to me naked restraint of free speech. What are “they” afraid of? General strikes. Perhaps workers will understand, en masse, the common disputes they have; will see the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain; and will jointly act to withhold their labor to fight back—with or without the support of Government.

Which brings me to Red Note and the coming anti-China hysteria. My instincts suggest to me that we will now be required to jointly despise China; and, to that end, we may eventually be forbidden to download an app that “some” claim shows Chinese citizens—many millions of them—are not only pretty well off materially, but are even pretty “normal” folks. Whether these things are accurate or inaccurate is not the point. The point is that such facts, if believed, are inconsistent with conferral of bogeyman status on a country, or with the initiation of wars against it. Just as communication of the facts of a labor dispute to other workers can “red pill” workers in a way that American labor law would find “inconvenient.” Will continued access to Red Note (not to be confused with red pill) be permitted? I very much doubt it. We will, rather, permit the government’s (or de facto government’s) prior restraint of communication of ideas. Much to the chagrin of old John Locke. There is nothing to see or debate here. Move along.